Comments

NBA Picks

NBA Picks: Thunder vs. Spurs Series Price Odds

The Conference Finals for the NBA are finally set, and after a lot of drama, especially in the West, the #1 and #2 seeds are meeting for the right to go to the Finals. The NBA Odds for the series are out, and they are much closer than the East’s NBA Odds.

Thunder (+135) vs. Spurs (-155)Compared
to the Eastern Conference Finals, the West’s series price is much closer, and
by all means it should be a pretty epic series. Two seasons ago in the Western
Conference Finals, the Spurs were up 2-0 against the Thunder, and it looked as
if they were going to waltz to the NBA Finals over a very young and impressive
Thunder team. However the Thunder won four straight games to came back from
being down 0-2 to win the series.

Now fast
forward to 2014. In two years, a lot has changed with both of these teams. Both
have gotten two years older, which is much more advantageous for the Thunder
than it is the Spurs. However while OKC has not gotten much better in the last
two years outside of their two stars, the Spurs are a lot deeper and they have
younger role players than two years prior.

Most
notably is Kawhi Leonard, who was just a young rookie with the Spurs back in
the 2012 postseason. Now he has quickly risen to become one of the Spurs best
players, and possible even one of their best three players. While he won’t completely
stop Kevin Durant by any means, I think he is going to make it very tough for
Durant in this series, much like Tony Allen did in he first four or five games
of round one. However Leonard is much bigger, stronger and younger than Allen,
and the Spurs’ young stud has had some success against KD this season.

In four
games against Leonard and the Spurs this season, Durant averaged 26 points per
game on 45.8% from the floor, well below his season averages of 32 points per
game and 50% shooting. In fact if you take away the third game they played one
another where Durant went off for 36 points, in the other three games, Leonard
limited Durant to only 23 points per game and 42.8% shooting. If this is the
kind of defense we see here in the playoffs from Leonard, he and the Spurs are
going to advance eventually.

The Sharp PickThe
Thunder shot the lights out of the ball in their Western Conference Finals win
over the Spurs two seasons ago, and a big reason was the performance of the
departed James Harden. Harden shot almost 50% from the floor, over 60% from three-point
land, and averaged over 18 points per game in that series. So far this
postseason, the only other Thunder players averaging double figures are Serge
Ibaka at 12 per game and Reggie Jackson with 10.

With how
well the Spurs’ defense has been playing, and with a now older and better
Leonard to defend Durant, I see the Spurs winning this series. San Antonio will
likely load up on Durant with Leonard, and make Russell Westbrook hurt them. If
they can isolate the bulk of the scoring onto the shoulders of Westbrook, the
Spurs are probably going to win this series. Westbrook alone cannot win this series
with how many options the Spurs have on the other side. Any given night six or
seven guys on the Spurs can hurt you, while there seems to be only two guys in
OKC. I’ll take the depth and experience of the Spurs to win an epic battle.